How safe is packing?

[SanSan]

now this sounds scary. I'm also interested if he had any previous lung injuries. It could be connected..

[Fitz-Clarke]

There is a recent paper that raises concern about injury due to lung packing. A 30-year old male free diver with a TLC of 9.17 litres packed his lungs to 10.21 litres during a lab study in Boston. A CT scan done afterwards showed a small pneumomediastinum (free air in the mid-chest) presumably due to air leakage outside the main-stem bronchus where it should not be. The significance of this is not known, but it does raise concern. To my knowledge this is the first actual published report of an injury due to packing. It leaves one to wonder how often this might be happening during routine packing without detection. For those interested, the article is:

Jacobson FL, Loring SH, Ferrigno M. Pneumomediastinum after lung packing. Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine 33(5):313-316; 2006

[Paul Kotik]

Originally Posted by Fitz-Clarke

There is a recent paper that raises concern about injury due to lung packing. A 30-year old male free diver with a TLC of 9.17 litres packed his lungs to 10.21 litres during a lab study in Boston. A CT scan done afterwards showed a small pneumomediastinum (free air in the mid-chest) presumably due to air leakage outside the main-stem bronchus where it should not be. The significance of this is not known, but it does raise concern. To my knowledge this is the first actual published report of an injury due to packing. It leaves one to wonder how often this might be happening during routine packing without detection. For those interested, the article is:

Jacobson FL, Loring SH, Ferrigno M. Pneumomediastinum after lung packing. Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine 33(5):313-316; 2006

My advice is to read this paper, and keep a very close eye on this line of research.

[trux]

A link would be helpful. I did not find anything at http://www.uhms.org/. I guess it is not available online, or is it?

[fpernett]

You can access the paper online at the proquest database: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb

But you (or your university) need to have an account

[Billextreme]

Skip packing, or at least avoid it until you know exactly what your doing.

The extra air is normally for equalize when you go deep, and for this there is better methods. Mouth fill is much more useful and will take you deeper. Takes more time to learn, but it's a lot better and safer when you control the technique.

Dr. Peter Lindholm is doing a special studies about "packing vs. risks" just right know, and later we can use his work to answer more questions

Packing for Static and Dynamic takes looong time to learn in, and you have to do very small step forward when it comes to increase the packing. Remember that your heart is just between your lungs, and if you pack to much you create big problem not only for your lungs, but also for your pump...

I teach glossophryngeal breathing (packing-carpa) in a big hospital here in Milano, and to mix packing with apnea is very, VERY advanced and should only be done by the highest level of the professional freediver’s.

/B

Vital capacity 9.0 L (154 procent over average)
Residual volume, 1.95 L
Glossopharyngeal breathing(lung packing) 12.68 L
RV+VC = TLC total lung capacity 10,95 L
TLC + packing 14,63 L
(tested by Dr Peter Lindholm)

[naiad]

My thoughts on the matter...

There are many reasons given for packing, these are some of them...
(Not saying that they are good reasons, just that some people pack because of them)

1. Increasing O2 stores
2. Increasing amount of air for equalisation
3. Psychological - having 'as much air as possible'
4. Compensating for restricted breathing caused by water pressure, suit etc.
5. Copying experienced freedivers - 'he can hold his breath for x minutes and he always packs'

These are very different reasons, and some are more risky than others. I would say that 4 is the safest, and 5 is the most risky.

My reasons are compensating for restricted breathing caused by water pressure, and having that little bit of extra air, because I often lose some during a dive.

Lucia